Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________ THE LADY IS NOT A TRAMP BY JENN SHREVE (02/06/98)

Jenn Shreve, with an air of glib triumph, makes grand claims regarding the reality of young women's sex lives. I do not take issue with her anger over Fox TV's use of the word "tramp," but I do challenge her short-sighted call for the celebration of such pathetically low sexual standards (i.e. sleeping with an older man as a "rite of passage").
Without taking into account the possibility of emotional damage that would lead one to carry on such transparent behavior, Ms. Shreve attempts to "one-up" Monica Lewinsky with accounts from her own sexual experience, and those of her peers, among whom it is not uncommon to have three different sexual partners in one weekend.
Jenn Shreve really wants us to know that she (and her friends) are able to conduct their sex life in absolute denial of its connection to the rest of their life -- professionally, emotionally, etc. Furthermore, she tells us, she would have given the president a blow job too, if given the opportunity.
I am not impressed. I feel pity, not envy, for Ms. Lewinsky. And I have no desire to prove my "20-something post-feminist sexual prowess" by performing my adolescent Electra-complex dramas before such a captive (and hostile) audience.
I have yet to hear Monica Lewinsky bragging about her "rite of passage"! It is common (and rather easy) to sleep with an older and/or married man. As a goal, however, it is a transparent repression of any real desire for meaningful interpersonal connection. If Ms. Shreve would allow that the problem of this lifestyle has less to do with its distance from our country's "Puritan values" than it does with a frightening allowance for young women to avoid their individuality, she might recommend instead that Monica Lewinsky get a good shrink.
Is Ms. Shreve not curious about the emotional state of her contemporaries who have three sexual partners in one weekend? You don't have to be Elizabeth Wurtzel (or from Vienna, for that matter) to know that these behaviors are borne of serious and deep-rooted problems, commonly rooted in the (now clichéd) "dysfunctional family."
I'm not sure that "jealous" is the right word to describe Ms. Shreve's tone, but I do know that as a woman who grew up wanting to be Madonna and reading Jane Austen, I have often been tempted to undermine my long-term goals by my impulses to gain an audience. I also know that all of my triumphant breakups with older (or younger) men in the past have had much more to do with my insistence on maintaining some MTV-style "energy" than with any real understanding for what I was doing at the time.
Perhaps the hostile and non-empathic tone hurled at Ms. Lewinsky has to do with a response to the attention she is getting for being just as impulsive as a lot of young women, particularly those who carry Ms. Shreve's bravado. (This is no different from the proliferation of the anorexia/self-mutilation memoirs that proliferate.) Maybe the all-powerful specter of media attention, particularly with its emphasis on Monica's "Return to Daddy," seems to palliate any real suffering. We all know of course (or find out) the impossibility of actually returning to the ideal/real father; but maybe in Monica's case this fantasy has seemed to come true. And, unfortunately, what seems to be true is all that most people are bargaining for anyway.
-- Suzanne Scanlon
New York
I feel that the coverage of the alleged Clinton scandal has gone too far. I always believed that you guys were above all of this. I know you as a bright, thoughtful magazine, but I suppose that I was wrong. The scandal is not news, it is trash made to look like an important matter by organizations such as MSNBC. The idea that papers and other disseminators of fact have stooped to coverage for economic prosperity instead of the actual distribution of educational and informational material makes me want to scream.
This trash may be fun to propagate, but it only lowers the respect you will receive from the public. I am disgusted by the fact that you conduct polls, print reports, continue to play up this sordid business. Sure, I can look away. As Jack Valenti (Motion Picture Association of America) said, "Anytime something violates someone's values, all they have to do is not buy the ticket or turn it off." If I must turn this off, to whom should I turn? "We The Media," a collection of essays on the media, (subtitled "A Citizens' Guide to Fighting for Media Democracy"), edited by Don Hazen and Julie Winokur, lists Salon as a "Feed Your Mind URL." After this coverage, I don't think you deserve such an honor.
-- Tasia Bernie

_______________ THE END OF GIRL TALK? BY TRACY QUAN (02/04/98)

I am surprised that Dr. Helen Fisher, the Darwinian anthropologist, did not pick up on why Linda Tripp made a good person for Monica Lewinsky to confide in about her sex life. From an evolutionary perspective, Ms. Tripp, being an older woman, would have had the experience to make her a worthwhile confidant, while providing no sexual competition to Ms. Lewinsky.
Unfortunately for Ms. Lewinsky, of course, her genes weren't programmed to take into account Ms. Tripp's desire to make a political name for herself.
-- Dean Christakos
Woodland Hills, Calif.
SALON | Feb. 11, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| BITTER FAME BY JAY PARINI

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_______________ THE LADY IS NOT A TRAMP BY JENN SHREVE (02/06/98)
	Jenn Shreve, with an air of glib triumph, makes grand claims regarding the reality of young women's sex lives. I do not take issue with her anger over Fox TV's use of the word "tramp," but I do challenge her short-sighted call for the celebration of such pathetically low sexual standards (i.e. sleeping with an older man as a "rite of passage"). Without taking into account the possibility of emotional damage that would lead one to carry on such transparent behavior, Ms. Shreve attempts to "one-up" Monica Lewinsky with accounts from her own sexual experience, and those of her peers, among whom it is not uncommon to have three different sexual partners in one weekend. Jenn Shreve really wants us to know that she (and her friends) are able to conduct their sex life in absolute denial of its connection to the rest of their life -- professionally, emotionally, etc. Furthermore, she tells us, she would have given the president a blow job too, if given the opportunity. I am not impressed. I feel pity, not envy, for Ms. Lewinsky. And I have no desire to prove my "20-something post-feminist sexual prowess" by performing my adolescent Electra-complex dramas before such a captive (and hostile) audience. I have yet to hear Monica Lewinsky bragging about her "rite of passage"! It is common (and rather easy) to sleep with an older and/or married man. As a goal, however, it is a transparent repression of any real desire for meaningful interpersonal connection. If Ms. Shreve would allow that the problem of this lifestyle has less to do with its distance from our country's "Puritan values" than it does with a frightening allowance for young women to avoid their individuality, she might recommend instead that Monica Lewinsky get a good shrink. Is Ms. Shreve not curious about the emotional state of her contemporaries who have three sexual partners in one weekend? You don't have to be Elizabeth Wurtzel (or from Vienna, for that matter) to know that these behaviors are borne of serious and deep-rooted problems, commonly rooted in the (now clichéd) "dysfunctional family." I'm not sure that "jealous" is the right word to describe Ms. Shreve's tone, but I do know that as a woman who grew up wanting to be Madonna and reading Jane Austen, I have often been tempted to undermine my long-term goals by my impulses to gain an audience. I also know that all of my triumphant breakups with older (or younger) men in the past have had much more to do with my insistence on maintaining some MTV-style "energy" than with any real understanding for what I was doing at the time. Perhaps the hostile and non-empathic tone hurled at Ms. Lewinsky has to do with a response to the attention she is getting for being just as impulsive as a lot of young women, particularly those who carry Ms. Shreve's bravado. (This is no different from the proliferation of the anorexia/self-mutilation memoirs that proliferate.) Maybe the all-powerful specter of media attention, particularly with its emphasis on Monica's "Return to Daddy," seems to palliate any real suffering. We all know of course (or find out) the impossibility of actually returning to the ideal/real father; but maybe in Monica's case this fantasy has seemed to come true. And, unfortunately, what seems to be true is all that most people are bargaining for anyway. -- Suzanne Scanlon New York I feel that the coverage of the alleged Clinton scandal has gone too far. I always believed that you guys were above all of this. I know you as a bright, thoughtful magazine, but I suppose that I was wrong. The scandal is not news, it is trash made to look like an important matter by organizations such as MSNBC. The idea that papers and other disseminators of fact have stooped to coverage for economic prosperity instead of the actual distribution of educational and informational material makes me want to scream. This trash may be fun to propagate, but it only lowers the respect you will receive from the public. I am disgusted by the fact that you conduct polls, print reports, continue to play up this sordid business. Sure, I can look away. As Jack Valenti (Motion Picture Association of America) said, "Anytime something violates someone's values, all they have to do is not buy the ticket or turn it off." If I must turn this off, to whom should I turn? "We The Media," a collection of essays on the media, (subtitled "A Citizens' Guide to Fighting for Media Democracy"), edited by Don Hazen and Julie Winokur, lists Salon as a "Feed Your Mind URL." After this coverage, I don't think you deserve such an honor. -- Tasia Bernie
_______________ THE END OF GIRL TALK? BY TRACY QUAN (02/04/98)
	I am surprised that Dr. Helen Fisher, the Darwinian anthropologist, did not pick up on why Linda Tripp made a good person for Monica Lewinsky to confide in about her sex life. From an evolutionary perspective, Ms. Tripp, being an older woman, would have had the experience to make her a worthwhile confidant, while providing no sexual competition to Ms. Lewinsky. Unfortunately for Ms. Lewinsky, of course, her genes weren't programmed to take into account Ms. Tripp's desire to make a political name for herself. -- Dean Christakos Woodland Hills, Calif. SALON \| Feb. 11, 1998